Wanderlust: Siem Reap Part 1

Preamble: I’ve been trying to put this little series together but unfortunately, I’ve been waylaid by rehearsals and some freelance writing. So while amost 1 month late, here it is anyway 🙂

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We landed in Siem Reap with a bang, literally. The Jetstar plane we took had a rough landing which jolted everyone on the plane into white knuckled alertness. Otherwise, arriving in Cambodia for the first was otherwise quite easy and smooth.

Traveling with my (almost) elderly parents meant I had to change my original plans of backpacking through the next 6 days in bed and breakfasts. Instead, we “settled” for Tara Angkor Hotel, which was booked at a really cheap rate through asiatravel.com. Service was indeed wonderful, with friendly staff welcoming us and checking us in at the arrival lounge where we sipped lemon grass tea. You know it’s a shee shee hotel when they serve you lemon grass tea…totally.

It was the low period, so our hotel was relatively quiet and the management extremely accommodating with our request to be roomed next to each other. This meant I was within “emotional bonding” distance with the parents but still had sound-proof solace from their “nocturnal sonorous ambiance”. By the way, Tara Angkor Hotel is actually a “4+” hotel because to be a 5 star hotel, the owners would have to pay higher tax and fulfill categorical requirements, such as having a garden and more rooms, which would obviously demand more capital and a higher investment risk. In other words, score! Highly recommended.

We could’ve seen Siem Reap purely using travel guide books but my dad arranged for a land tour. It was an excellent idea because we had a local guide you could rely on AND an air-conditioned van. That combination was quite essential especially considering the age and fitness level of my parents.

We did a two and a half days arrangement at my “I need the rest to get two physically taxing shows outta my body” request. And this we found out was just right. Considering we had to stay for six days because of Jetstar’s flight schedules (by the way, Jetstar’s rates were the most budget friendly), that meant we had two half days and one full day to travel and explore Siem Reap ourselves.

I’ll be blunt and say that that it was one day too many. Four days would have been tight, five days just right, six days too boring. But more of what we did and what to be seen in a later post 🙂